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No Game No Life Episode 2 Review

I’m really set on following No Game No Life this season. We had a really great pair of siblings on first impression and now their current positions in the plot have been flushed out at the moment. In the end shots after the credits of episode 1, we saw Stephanie Dola, the granddaughter of the old kind, approach Sora in his room wrapped in nothing but a sheet.

Rating: 4/5 happy clouds

It turns out that Stephanie is really not good at games at all. She ends up losing her position as the heir as well as her dress to Kurami, the game pro who’s beating out all other contestants. When Steph tells Sora of her situation, Sora can already read her like an open book. As kind-hearted as Steph seems, she’s really not clever enough as a gamer nor is she a risk-taker. After a pretty analytical and intense game of rock-paper-scissors, Sora wins and tells Stephanie to fall in love with him (so that he can have the palace and riches by extension). This is mainly how Stephanie become friends bonded acquaintances with Sora and Shiro. The power of God Tet’s commandments actually change her perception of Sora and force her to be nice to him because the repercussions following the loss of the rock-paper-scissors wager.

It’s important to note that Sora and Shiro are actually unable to function without being in physical proximity to each other. They can’t even be more than ten feet apart as witnessed by Steph when she furiously kicks Sora out the room and down the hallway. I love seeing Sora and Shiro’s relationship moments, they’re both hilariously adorable and sweet. Shiro even goes so far to be close to her brother as never showering because he can’t shower with her. Steph provides quite a bit of explanation about the world that the siblings have been brought into. Elkia was once part of the Imanity civilization and Steph’s father had bet part of Imanity’s territory against the other sixteen sentient races aka the Exceed, that the commandments apply to… Old Deus, Phantasma, Elementals, Elves, Warbeasts, Sirens and others, a variety of different races who are ranked based on their affinity with magic. Imanity, or rather, the humans, lack the magic circuits that allow them to game against other races and win which is why some gamers can cheat without their imanity opponents being aware. Shiro in her intellectual brilliance immediately picks up the imanity written language and Steph, witnessing Shiro interact with her brother wonder if they can potentially save Elkia.

Steph tells Sora and Shiro that she wanted to prove that Imanity is strong enough to win against the other races, a belief that her father also held. Sora and Shiro bump into Kurami in the hallways of the palace as she readies for her coronation. Kurami offers the dress she previously won and Steph almost wants to take the dress back. However, Sora picks up on Kurami’s clever maneuvering around the rules. Commandments 6 states that all wagers made in accordance with the commandments must be upheld. He shrewdly hands the dress back to her and she accepts it, taking her leave.

Sora decides that his next goal in the game world is to become king. Shiro seems to have more or less figured out what her older brother wants to do and she agrees to follow him wherever he may go. The episode ends here and for a second episode, I have to say that there was A LOT of information packed into it. However, I thought that it was really well informative and easy to follow partially because Tet’s game world is similar to fantasy worlds with a mix of magical species. I’m interested to see how the Blank duo will take on the other species because they’ll be battling magic with risky but brilliant calculated analyses to work the rules and flow of the game to their advantage. The art as seen in shots of the kingdom of Elkia reinforces just how amazing the animation has been styled in this series. Lots of great developments in No Game No Life and I can’t wait to see Blank in game and in action.